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It goes without saying that many authors follow unorthodox paths in life, not necessarily beginning in writing. J.K. Rowling was working for Amnesty International when she came up with the idea of boy-wizard Harry Potter. Diary of a Wimpy Kid author Jeff Kinney dreamed of being a newspaper cartoonist. Even Maurice Sendak, who famously penned Where the Wild Things Are, spent several years illustrating children’s books before he began writing his own. Melanie (Andres) Conklin ‘00, who recently signed aRead more »

Although Park Scholars’ backgrounds and interests are widely varied, many alumni have found a home at Deloitte. Deloitte provides audit, tax, consulting, enterprise risk, and financial advisory services for many of the largest companies in the world, including many of the Fortune 500.

Scholarship. Leadership. Service. Character. The four pillars on which the Park Scholarships program is founded are also at the core of the U.S. armed forces’ mission – and more than one Park alumnus currently serving our country has remarked on this parallel.

At the age of 14, Mark DeMaria ’17 developed a fascination with the merging of computers and design, hybridizing the technical and the creative. This fascination, though, was never of the spectator variety. After a few years of years of experimentation and self-teaching, it has evolved into a passion.

In an increasingly interconnected world, we look to the innovative thinkers and technology developers to solve some of our most pervasive problems. Joy Johnson ’07 is one of these technological innovators. From her years as an undergraduate at NC State to her current research at MIT, she has been using her skill set to take inventive projects to the next level.

Career-savvy college graduates recognize that one must embrace both challenges and opportunities to achieve professional fulfillment. One such young alumnus was Daniel Malechuk ‘03, who graduated with a business management major and a Spanish minor and has spent the past eleven years clambering up the corporate ladder.

The Learning Lab II experience is designed to allow sophomore Park Scholars to develop a critical understanding of a national issue – selected by the class during their freshman year – by interacting with leaders immersed in that issue. In October the Class of 2017 traveled to Washington, D.C. to examine how leaders in the public and private sectors tackle complex challenges surrounding the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) from both domestic and international perspectives.

North Carolina State University’s Park Scholarships Class of 2015 will present the 16th annual William C. Friday Award to behavioral economist Dan Ariely. The award presentation is open to the public and will be held on Monday, November 17 at 5:30 PM at NC State’s Talley Student Union.